Education Zone
by Lord Kelvin
Summary: Sonic finds a way to give Mobius a happier future at the price of making some school children sad and Tails wrestling Robotnik's pet cobra.


Author's note: Written for the Kelviniana forum Back to School challenge. Complete and ready for reviews!

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog, related characters and locales are copyright SEGA.

_**EDUCATION ZONE**_

It had to be done. Sonic felt dreadful about breaking into the garage at night, but he was clutching at straws by that point. If letting Tails slip inside separated them from giving Mobius a happier future, the hero had no right to hesitate. A passing cargo train drowned out the sound of forceful entry.

"Make it quick," Sonic whispered.

His two-tailed buddy couldn't help worrying that Eggman, err…little Ivo had prepared a trap of sorts. They were breaking into a nine-year-old's house with the explicit purpose of tampering with his school project. Ivo may have concocted fantastically wicked torture for those wishing to sabotage the boy's greatest invention thus far.

Tails scratched his head, wondering what it was. The contraption, a cumbersome and unattractive thing, consisted of a glass beaker, kitchen scales, oil tubes and a light bulb. A sideways glance revealed Ivo's project cannibalized the Robotnik family car. Eggman's past self made a conscious effort to hide the scavenged parts behind a thick veil. The beaker and light combo sat on a table cart was supposed to capture a viewer's attention completely, distracting them from the action taking place underneath.

Night vision goggles helped Tails inspect the details without turning the lights on, but he was weary of starting up the device. Despite his acute knowledge of mechanics, the prodigy had no idea what the thing was supposed to do. Tails rummaged around the garage in search for clues until a crumpled note written by Ivo himself provided a more definite answer.

"And so, this machine converts the potato's chemical energy into electricity without plugging any wires into the tuber," the fox murmured to himself, reading.

He must have found the presentation speech Ivo had prepared. Although lots of strikeouts and underlines obfuscated the text, Tails got the general idea from the legible bits. Now that he understood the boy's plan on dominating the school's science fair, the fox could prevent Ivo's descent into madness by making the device work as intended.

Tails did not like the idea. Altering the time continuum was more dangerous than a madman's dreams come true, a surprising statement he picked up from Eggman's old archives. Perhaps, he should not have shared the full extent of his findings with Sonic. It wouldn't have given the hedgehog tangible hope that Eggman could change. Not to mention travelling to the night before unanimous ridicule broke Ivo's spirit was a very backwards way of instilling said change.

One thing was certain: the machine had enough faults to level a neighbourhood, so Tails rejected enabling it from the get-go. Sonic's insistence on hasty Chaos Control left him with a very basic tool set. There was no way he'd start wrenching the device to improve it, as the noise would wake up the entire household.

Truth be told, the fox just didn't want to get dirty inside someone else's car in the middle of the night. Had Sonic, whose impatient foot tapping Tails could feel in the back of his head, given him more notice prior to the trip, he wouldn't have to rely on a train to conceal his presence. Because they haven't researched the neighbourhood enough, Tails had no clue about the time window he had to make everything work.

Nothing like an unknown variable to spice up a sleepless night. For Sonic's plan to succeed, Tails had to fix the car, so Ivo would appear at the science fair, and tinker with the energy converter lest it blow up the school as described in the villain's archives.

Tails started with simplifying Ivo's invention and quickly discovered that some of the risky parts could be discarded altogether. The boy had used a car battery to get the process running. Tails frowned at the overkill, replacing the heavy container with a pair of regular AA batteries. He also put some of the metalwork aside, aware that it belonged to the family car, a vintage sedan.

Old cars were sensitive emotionally, a preposterous belief explainable only by correlating a mechanic's failures. Another train was approaching, so the fox prepared his best mood to accompany the repairs. The owner treated the car well, which served as another challenge for Tails: the scientifically unsound entities responsible for jinxing repairs were bound to have high maintenance. Tails gulped at the prospects of the car rejecting his attempts to fix it altogether.

As the clatter on the railroad track subsided, Tails' actions ground to a halt. The neighbourhood had tall fences to protect it from mechanical noise, but the still night pronounced every touch of the tracks. With silence looming about, Tails abandoned the car to continue working on Ivo's invention.

Doubt lingered in his mind. Even rough estimates of the simplified design pointed at failure, forcing the prodigy to resort to drastic measures, cheating. He wired the batteries to the scales, so they would discharge when extra weight appeared in the beaker, powering up the transmitter responsible for lighting. Tails put the theory to the test with the help of Ivo's trusty potato and nearly yelped at the light enhanced by his night vision goggles.

"You okay there, buddy?" Sonic asked. The hedgehog respected Tails' personal repair space by standing guard outside the garage.

"Almost."

Tails examined the sedan visually. All the parts seemed to be back where they belonged, but the fox could not start the car without a diversion. He asked Sonic to run along the railroad for the next train's ETA. Even though Sonic didn't know what an ETA was, he dashed all the way to the nearest station only to return with bad news: they've heard the last of military cargo trains that night.

While Sonic was away, Tails came up with plan B: the fox had scientific certainty the car would run as intended and it would deliver Ivo to school safely. He checked the oil gauge and the petrol tank. All good and ready to go. Then again, evil mechanical fairies may not have appreciated Tails' mending speed, which prompted him to give the Robotnik family a morning time bonus. Unfortunately, adjusting their alarm clocks was more difficult than a flash of Chaos Control.

By then, however, the fox put planning ahead of reason. He ignored the fact he was creeping inside someone's house to mess up their clocks. If a random detour into sociology taught Tails anything, a schoolboy's parents woke up first, making them the optimal target.

The door to the master bedroom upstairs was oiled well, giving him an edge in stealth. No creaking floorboards in a house that would see the rise of a villain, either. The quaint decor underwent tremendous scrutiny, giving the wooden furniture a sterile feel. Tails didn't mind the intricacy as long as it worked to his benefit.

He grinned sinisterly at the sight of the bedside alarm clock. It was surprise daylight savings time for the Robotnik family! Tails snickered to himself at how well the plan went so far.

The snickering didn't stop even though Tails did. His ears perked up in search of the source. Was Sonic stalking him?

As soon as he finished turning back the time, he eyed the room carefully. Ivo's parents snored throughout the operation, so it couldn't have been them. The noise seemed to be coming from outside the room, something he was glad to investigate; Tails didn't want to have a close-up of the people whose…actions…made Eggman happen. They could have been neckless monsters that skinned forest creatures for a living.

The image convinced Tails to leave the room, closing the door slowly behind him.

As he did, the noise grew stronger. It wasn't a snicker, but something else, like a hiss, yes. Tails heard hissing very close by. He also felt a tap on his shoe.

Invariably, the intricacy turned against the intruder: a snake was caressing his shoe with its tail. Tails yipped, trying to shut the door, unaware that the snake wanted to make its way inside the bedroom. The resulting body squeeze made it very unhappy.

Its tail smacked the fox in the knee, making his scared self lose the remains of balance. Tails fell, gasping for air as he crawled away from a hissing spiral ready to pounce. The snake's head inflated aggressively before it squirted poison. Had Tails not rolled away, his face would have been smothered in lethal spit.

Tails dodged the physical strike that followed by swirling into the air. There was no way the snake would allow him to land, tracking his flight path from the floor, so the fox went for the nearest window, an unbreakable triple-glazed obstacle.

Lights clicked open in neighbouring rooms and footsteps headed his way. The trains and the wrenching were fine, but one small fox floating in the hallway woke everyone up. The snake knocking down small objects with repeated jabs in Tails' direction may have added to the alarm.

A high-pitched wheeze reached him from behind. It was Ivo.

"Get him, Spalding! The Oil Ocean company sent him to destroy my invention!"

Spalding? Ivo's parents let the boy have a spitting cobra as a pet?

Panic got the best of Tails when he found a way to open the window. Rather than open it full-on, he turned the handle up, making but a narrow slit at the top. As he readjusted the grip, Spalding bit the white tip of his tail and sent him tumbling down.

Excited, yet half-asleep, Ivo landed face-first on the floor thanks to his portly feet. The thud confused Spalding into letting Tails go, and the fox used his one chance to head his tails out. He'd wash the poison out of his fur later. Escaping alive was just about enough that night.

Sonic didn't know what to say about his orangey friend's screaming. He had to carry the fox into an empty park to calm down before he could find out what exactly had happened inside. The last thing he wanted was law enforcement. That would have seriously hampered his pending quest for old school chilli dogs.

It was one AM when Tails pulled himself together. Sonic listened to his story, nodding to every bit while trying to swallow the food he got in a convenience store. He found an odd twist to the old saying about things not being what they used to be. Perhaps, the good times were yet to come for the hot dog business.

"We need to keep an eye on them," Sonic said in the end.

Tails' ears drooped, but he had nothing to say. The determination in Sonic's eyes was enough to change his mind. If they've started with the plan, it was best to oversee it till the end. Not that Tails enjoyed returning to the killer snake's house.

Ivo's family must have gotten back to sleep because the lights were dead. Thankfully, they didn't call the police, so the heroes had free reign in the dark. Sonic found a good vantage point to track any movement, a tree house on the Robotnik estate.

The fox yawned once he was up in the tiny cabin. "Why does Eggman own a tree house? He hates trees."

"He's not Eggman yet. If all goes according to plan, he won't become one."

Sonic suggested Tails got some rest for the next day while one pair of eyes was secure enough. The fox agreed after making sure Sonic didn't want to nap first. It was better than nothing. They could take turns and be in good shape for the next adventure. Tails smiled at being so helpful and let himself fall asleep.

A poke in the ribs woke him up. Tails let go of the bushy tail he was hugging for comfort and sat up, clearing his eyes enough to see the digits on his watch.

He gasped when he made out the time. "What? Seven? I thought-"

"Shhh!"

Sonic was eavesdropping on the action outside: a GUN van parked next to Ivo's house. A soldier walked out to be met by Ivo's parents at the front door. They gave him a wooden crate to carry into the vehicle. Ivo joined the soldier in the van soon after.

The garage remained closed throughout the night and Sonic was certain he didn't see a crate in it. They've missed something, but it wasn't a time for recollections as the van drove off.

"Let's go."

"All that work…" Tails sighed, sliding down the tree.

Questions fluttered in Tails' aching head while he followed the vehicle all the way to Ivo's school in Emerald Town. Entering the white institution may have been a problem because of security, but the science fair attracted enough spectators and parents for Sonic to easily zip inside.

The challenge was finding a spot both secluded and convenient enough to stay in control of the science fair. Tails surprised him with ingenious spark by approaching a frustrated-looking adult. A reporter was having trouble setting up a video camera, prompting Tails to come to the rescue. It took very little to convince the human to give the filming to Tails, who showed great care and professionalism about the tech.

Further talk uncovered that the reporter was also a science fair entrant's parent. Sonic felt confident leaving the initiative to Tails while he stayed in touch via a short-range communicator. Whatever oddity his buddy would encounter during the fair, Sonic would know.

Tails was asked to begin filming once he reached the school's assembly hall, where all the participants had set up their stands. The number of interesting projects perplexed the fox. Ivo was a genius, sure, but the other students exhibited great potential, too. He approached a young redhead, no older than himself, standing on a chair to make up for her height. The girl presented a robotic head with a human-like plastic face she insisted Tails touched to find out its purpose.

He did as instructed, taking the entire experience on camera.

"Believe in yourself. You can reach the highest of all the heavens," the robot said.

"Wow! That's really cool!"

The reporter smiled, adding to Tails' excitement. "That's my girl! Fingers crossed, sweetie!"

A motivation robot was something new, and it had the prospects to rake in high points from the judge panel made of the school's administration. Tails could easily tell who they were by the serious clipboards they carried coupled with the attention the students gave them.

Camera duties let Tails become acquainted with all the science projects, including Ivo's. The fox was worried at first that he would be identified as the Oil Ocean saboteur, but Ivo's hasty pitch offered relief. To Ivo, he was just another impressionable spectator.

Impressionable was right. Tails couldn't help feeling odd that Eggman's past self had hair on his head instead of the moustache. Were it not for the mission's importance, he'd have petted Ivo's top to have scientific certainty it wasn't a wig.

"Now, stand back and behold…the power of the potato!" Ivo exclaimed, wheezing from how much he'd been talking to build up excitement.

Tails had forgotten about the next part. It wasn't the energy converter he had fixed in the garage. He closed his eyes when Ivo placed the potato in the beaker, hoping the explosion wouldn't be too big. Sonic was ready to rescue him at any moment.

The result was not an explosion, yet the result blinded everyone in the assembly hall. Ivo's machine attracted everyone's attention, and Ivo went to wow them further by turning off the hall's lights. The entire science fair was lit up by a boy's potato for a few seconds.

Another student's paper mache volcano project erupted in miserable solitude while Ivo's genius amassed the judges' gazes. The light show ended with deafening applause, getting curt praise from the reporter. Tails noticed that the panel gave the energy converter equally stifled praise.

Sonic took a lightning-quick dash to help Tails look up Ivo's score in the competition. The marks were high, but far from perfect. For some reason, the judges had reservations about a truly marvellous invention. One by one, they exhibited greater fondness for the redhead's motivation robot, and the situation began heating up for little Ivo.

A crowd of older boys his machine attracted had malicious intent written on their faces. Ivo got to answer all sorts of practical questions, including how the device could be used to cheat during a test.

Ivo glared at the audacity, but more was to come.

"Are potatoes a special snowflake or something?"

"Yeah, Ivo. Does it steam carrots?"

"M-my invention can convert energy from any source put in the beaker," the boy explained.

He couldn't dissuade the rowdy kids from throwing mints into the container. "Whoops! I dropped my sources."

When one of them reached out to pick up the mints, Ivo grabbed his arm. "Do not touch."

The older boy snorted. "Or what?"

Ivo took off his protective gloves, revealing multiple band-aids covering burns. The machine still lacked in the safety department, as Tails had expected. It was no deterrent to Ivo's crowd that continued teasing him.

"Ha-ha. You sucked your fingers so hard they popped."

A spectator chucked a can of open Diet Chaos Cola at Ivo. The inventor tried catching it, but it slipped between his fingers, heading down into the beaker. The boys stared gleefully in anticipation of a classic explosion.

Tails called in Sonic to interfere. It resulted in Chaos Soda pouring into the beaker instead, a much safer fizzy companion for the mints. The bullies got bored of mocking Ivo, so they left to pester the redhead, whose motivation machine would be tested for damage resistance.

At first, Tails wanted to get the reporter's attention. Sonic also asked if Tails needed any help evicting the troublemakers. He did. The bullies had plundered more than one project already, but the soft-speaking robot was different: it got higher scores than Ivo's converter and nearly all the judges have finished rating the stands. The school principal, busy giving an interview to the only agent from a big national newspaper, was yet to assess some of the available projects.

Sonic had retreated onto the roof to avoid the crowd and got worried once Tails muted his mic. "You've turned very quiet. Tails? Hello!"

"I'm fine. The principal is walking up to Ivo right now. It'll go peachy…"

He wasn't entirely sure about the last part. The principal had critical remarks about the nasty pool of bubbles inside the beaker, and Ivo couldn't help because the glass container was attached firmly to the scales. The boy got a word of encouragement in the end, but it was the motivation machine that piqued the headmaster's interest. Everyone had supremely positive feelings towards it.

All of the judges, at least. The bullies tried the machine's patience by letting it motivate leftover soda. The moisture got it to snap back at the culprits. A fight would have ensued were it not for Tails' reporter running to the redhead's rescue. Adult supervision saw the delinquents out.

Capitalising on minute privacy, Tails gave Sonic clear instructions on what to do next. At the same time, the head teacher started rating the robot head.

"It all comes down to just one little thing – love," it said upon being poked on the plastic face.

The principal smiled at the student, as did the crowd surrounding the science fair's favourite.

Tails closed his eyes mournfully. "Sonic, go."

A gust of wind rustled the headmaster's notes. He asked the janitor to close the window while he went for another go with the motivation head. It was wet with Diet Chaos Cola.

"You are a fat loser that fails at teaching."

Everyone laughed. Surely, a machine possessing an acute sense of humour deserved bonus points. The principal was about to scribble in a perfect score when it spoke again.

"Adopted moron."

The judge was taken aback by the statement, which made the redhead scuttle to shut the robot down. The machine's metal parts zapped her as the voice continued spouting verbal abuse. She couldn't wipe the moisture without getting electrocuted and started panicking because the motivation went out of control. The principal had already turned away to leave, so hitting the off switch was a matter of limiting the tears rather than winning.

Ivo ran to help her, but was pushed away in an angry fit. Only when he offered her a rubber glove did she realise the solution, disabling the device with a simple insulated click. Sadly, there was no button to cancel out the crying…

Spectators approved Ivo's heroism and he was soon approached by an assessor to stay close to the stage. They were ready to announce the winner. Not before the sponsors and local government officials finished their speeches, of course.

Realising the moment of truth was nigh, Sonic found it safe to appear in the assembly hall. Everyone's attention was glued to the principal holding a mystery envelope that spelled a great trophy to one very special student. Ivo was biting his lips in anticipation.

He wished he didn't. Days of guarding his invention from evil eyes, building an explosive decoy and making some adults very unhappy about a car that wouldn't start went to waste when one of the mint-throwing idiots pulled his hand into the active energy converter. The hall flashed white before a bloody scream wiped the smiles off the crowd's faces. Ivo raged on the spot.

The principal made with a quick save by pointing at a random stand. "That boy with the paper mache volcano! Come on up, son. Your project is the most amazing independent display of science that cares for the physical and emotional well-being of our world. You win!"

Ivo stopped raging on the spot. He stormed out of the assembly hall, fuming with anger and disappointment. So what if the converter converted a moron's hand into electricity? It was probably the most useful purpose it ever had, but he still lost…to a mediocre hump of paper.

Thankfully, he was not alone. Grandpa Gerald stayed with him the entire time. Were it not for Grandpa's encouragement, Ivo would have never constructed such an elaborate device or had a sugary lolly to dilute the sorrows.

"I am proud of you, Ivo. One day, you will be a great scientist, greater than myself."

"Greater than Retxed from the Retxed's Lab cartoon?"

Gerald nodded, smiling. "Greater than him, yes."

"And we'll go to the amusement park when that happens?"

"I'm sure there will be plenty of amusement parks in your future, Ivo."

"What about right now?"

They laughed. Gerald threw a batch of notes to the soldier driving the GUN van once they left the school and drove off with the boy. Having followed them from a distance, Sonic thought he's done his part in causing positive change in Ivo's life, and the lives of future Mobians.

"What do you think?"

Tails held back for a few seconds before replying. "The school didn't explode and it wasn't the_ universal humiliation_ Eggman described in his archives."

"Sweet! How about we go home for a victory chilli dog, or twenty?"

"Sonic, umm, maybe we can do that here? I'm sure they'll have the good stuff at that amusement park."

"On it, buddy!"

A blue streak sped by, too fast for the naked eye. It agreed to stay in the blissful past to postpone witnessing the endgame of interference more dangerous than a madman's dreams come true. But he would experience it on a more inviting fairground, away from The Emerald Town School for the Emotionally Disturbed.


End file.
